1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to machines for disintegrating trash materials, and more particularly to equipment for mincing and decontaminating infectious waste items.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A great variety of equipment ha been devised for disposing of trash of various kinds and sizes. Examples could range from a hammer as a simple example, to an automobile shredder as a more complex example. Of greater interest to the treatment of medical waste is the machine disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,619,409 issued Oct. 28, 1986 to which I contributed. It is a comparatively large stationary machine for disintegration and decontamination of hospital waste materials in relatively large volumes. But there are many facilities which do not have such volumes of waste materials, space for such a large machine, or funds to buy such large and expensive machines. A couple of examples are medical and dental offices. One effort to deal with the waste materials of such facilities is represented in U.S. Pat. No. 4,971,261 issued Nov. 20, 1990 to Solomons. That patent discloses a device that is intended to be a portable desk-top device. It has a cylindrical body 11, cover 12, one-way feed opening 13 in the cover 12, a motor driven rotating blade 20 in the body to fragment the waste, a sweeper blade agitation member 21 rotated by the blade drive motor, and a cut-out 12C of the cover 12 which can be rotated to a position of registry with a discharge opening 14 in the cylindrical body 11 and which communicates with the disposal chute 15 for discharge of the fragmented particles into the jar 23 which contains sterilizing solution. Then the jar, with sanitized and fragmented items is said to be disposed of as ordinary trash. Solomons apparently was not intended to deal with soft waste items. Also, the decontamination treatment is not done until after the fragmenting.
The waste from a physician's or dentist's office and for which safe disposal is needed, includes not just hard items such as needles, syringes and vials, but also soft items such as bandage material and rubber gloves. It is desirable to avoid the necessity of sorting these things before disposal. The prior art equipment known to me in a size suitable for portable, desk-top or counter-top use in a comparatively small facility, cannot suitably handle such a variety of materials.